We need to do more to stop the avalanche of forgeries. Not only do they constitute a fraud, but they threaten our hobby (and they mess up my research as well). One thing we can do is to publish known forgeries, for the benefit of all.

We must also ask the dealers to spend a greater effort in researching the coins they sell.

I will here give a disturbing example of a large number of forgeries. They were published already in 1989 and 1990 in the Bulletin of Counterfeits (BOC). Unfortunately, the Bulletin is a collectorís item rather than a widely used reference (a complete run of the bulletin was sold in 2015 for over $2,000).

You who read this may well be the unlucky owner of one of the forgeries shown below. They have all been sold to someone. The sellers include a dozen of the major auction houses as well as respected dealers. They have sold the coins as genuine, unaware that they are forgeries. Sadly, had they checked the BOC they would have recognized that their coins were not genuine. But they didnít.

These forgeries are so deceiving that it is almost impossible to identify them individually. I have bought two of these to study, and they are near perfect, but not entirely. I will not reveal what details in the coins themselves that show them to be forgeries because that information would then become available to the next generation of criminals. However, by die matching (see below) I can show that they are forgeries.

If you own further examples of these forgeries, or know of any, please let me know.

NOTE: Due to size limitations, in order to see all the images you need to visit the discussion
boards at FORVM or Late Roman Bronze coins: